Honey, I'm Home
by Evelyn Raith
Summary: Harry is finally back in Chicago after handling his spectral mission.  He has to face Murphy and his feelings for her.  Adult situations and language. Major spoilers for Changes/Ghost Story/et al


Honey, I'm Home

By Evelyn Raith

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><p>"I have a bad feeling about this." I fidgeted in the passenger seat of my brother's sports car. "I should call her first."<p>

There was a burst of sparks from the middle of the dashboard and the music that had been playing slowed drunkenly down.

"Damn it, Harry! You're going to blow the whole car up at this rate! Get yourself under control!" Thomas snapped.

One last loud spark-pop and the music stopped entirely. Thomas glared daggers at me through his grey eyes.

I slunk down in the seat a bit and tried to think happy thoughts through the butterflies in my stomach.

I thought of Karrin Murphy, my best friend, my guardian angel. She currently thinks I'm dead. She had refused to give up hope that I wasn't alive somewhere and then I had the audacity to show up as a ghost and prove her wrong. Last I remember seeing her in my ghostly form, she was crying. Crying over me. Ouch.

I had apparently been dead in the Princess Bride sense of the word. Only _mostly_ dead. I got off on a technicality. It had been two months since my soul came back to my body, at least in 'real world' time. I had been in Faerie, learning my role as Winter Knight for Queen Mab for what added up to just under a year to me.

I had a whole new arsenal at my disposal. I was at least twice the wizard I use to be.

Murphy was a whopping five foot tall on a good day and barely weighed over a hundred pounds.

… and she scared the hell out of me.

She was one of the fiercest warriors I've ever come across and I was lucky to have her fighting at my side all these years. My sudden disappearance left her in a bad spot and she tried her best to keep up the good fight without me. I was afraid of the damage that had caused. I was afraid she wouldn't forgive me for dying. I was very hopeful that she'd just be happy that I was alive.

The car was no longer running. The look on Thomas's face told me that we had been sitting there for some time now.

I frowned at Thomas. He looked past me out the window to the cute house that Murphy's grandmother had given her. I turned and looked at it, glared back to Thomas, then sighed and opened the car door so I could unfold my long limbs from the tiny sports car.

Thomas started the car as slammed the door. I yelled after him, "What if she's not home?"

"She's home!" He yelled out the window and drove off, tires squealing, leaving me standing there on the sidewalk.

I turned and faced the house and began to walk up to the door.

I paused on the porch and smoothed out my black trousers and black silk button up shirt. I still felt naked without my duster, but that was deader than I had been. I smoothed my fingers through my mess of hair and reached up to knock on the door.

It opened on its own and Waldo Butters stepped into the door frame. He startled a bit as he saw me.

"Oh! Harry! It's good to see you… um… corporeal again." The little M.E. smiled up at me and pushed his glasses up onto his nose.

"Hey Butters. I'm here to see…"

"Right, come on in and sit down, Karrin is out back."

"Maybe you should go get her and I'll wait…"

"Oh no, come on in." He grabbed my arm and nearly gave me whiplash pulling me into the house.

"Butters, man, what's the prob—"

"Gotta go! I'll see you later, Harry!" and with that, the little guy bolted out the door and slammed it behind him.

"Well, ok, I'll come in and make myself at home." I said to the closed door, just so I could finish at least one sentence.

I felt a prickle along my spine right before I heard glass break behind me. I spun to see Murphy standing in the doorway to the kitchen. There was a broken drinking glass on the floor with some liquid, probably water, at her feet. Her hand still held up as if she was holding it. There were lines in her cute face and her hair was still cut extremely short. She was dressed to be outside gardening wearing boots, dark sweatpants and an old faded Cubs t-shirt. I watched as the remaining color drained out of her face.

I stood up straight and took a breath. "Uh, hi honey… I'm home."

Her mouth moved, but no sound came out. I made out the word she was trying to say. "Harry".

I began to smile, but then Murphy's eyes began to dart around the room. Her eyes settled to a spot to my left and I looked over to see her gun hanging in its holster by the door.

"Whoa!" I put my hands up and put myself between her and the gun. "Wait, it's me, I swear it. It's Harry."

She had the look of frightened wildlife, but took a breath and did what she does best. She took control.

She used the toe of her boot to kick a bit of glass over to my feet. "Prove it. Bleed."

I slowly leaned down to the floor and picked up the glass shard. Without taking my eyes off Murphy, I found a sharp edge and made a small cut in the pad of my left hand. I let the blood well up and then showed it to her.

She took a few steps closer to me to look at it. "Ok, so you're human."

"Murph, really, it's me." I let my posture slump and shook my head. "I know I have a lot of explaining to do, but I don't want to go through what I did last time to get you to believe it's really me."

"What happened the last time you touched me?" She persisted.

I scowled at her, but stepped closer. She held her ground and I reached and took her hand. Looking into her eyes, I leaned down and laid a kiss on the back of each finger.

The look on her face softened. Her eyes shined with impending tears. I kept her small hand in mine stroking the back softly with my thumb.

Her voice whispered softly. "Harry? Oh god… Harry?"

I smiled through tears of my own. "Yeah, Murph, It's me."

Then she hit me with a right hook that spun me back to facing the door.

I was about to protest but she kicked my knee out from under me and shoved my face into the door. I saw nothing but stars and the next thing I knew, she had maneuvered to where she could get the leverage needed to grab my arm and flip my lanky body completely over and onto the floor.

The impact knocked the wind out of me. Well, the impact and Murphy landing on my chest. She straddled me, her legs pinning my arms down to the floor.

I looked up at her as she grabbed a fistful of my shirt with her left hand and drew back with her right to punch me in the face.

I flinched my eyes closed and prepared for the blow, but it didn't happen. I dared to open one eye and saw that she was sitting there, cocked and ready to fire. She moved suddenly and I closed my eye again.

Instead of a fist, I felt her mouth on mine.

There was nothing soft about her kiss, it was fierce and hungry. It was a startled moment before I was able to reciprocate. Then I reciprocated the hell out of it.

I lost track of time and maybe even forgot my name for a moment before she broke the kiss and sat up. My face was damp from both of our tears as I looked up at her flushed face. Her lips swollen from the ravaging kiss.

"So… Miss me?" I said.

She shook her head and tried to hide a smile, she moved her knees off my arms but still sat across my hips looking down at me. "I can't believe I was worried that you'd outlive me, Dresden."

"I know, what in the hell were you thinking?" I shuffled a bit and was able to sit up, she sat in my lap, facing me and leaned into my chest. I held her close, taking in her warmth and her scent. I ran my hands over her back and clutched her tightly to me. The butterflies in my stomach returned in force.

"Damn it, Harry. You left me here. You left me behind." She didn't even try to hide the tears as they took her this time. Her sobs shook her against me and her hands made fists into the front of my shirt. She cussed me and damned me a few more times for good measure.

I waited for her to settle down a bit, after all, it took at least that long for my own tears to slow. "I'm here now." I whispered into her hair. "You should have known you couldn't get rid of me that easily. Besides, we had a date."

She looked up at me and smiled through a sniffle. "Yeah, we did, didn't we?"

"Sorry, I'm a little late. Maybe we could get some dinn—" She kissed me again, and this time, I didn't mind not finishing my sentence.

My hands had settled on her waist, and I wanted to pull her closer, to feel her body pressed against me. I wanted to slip my hands under her clothes and feel her flesh. I balled my hands into fists, not knowing if I had permission and not daring to if I didn't.

That's when I realized she was unbuttoning my shirt.

I pulled back from the kiss and looked into her eyes for a dangerous moment, then down at my exposed chest. She sat back and ran her hands from my collar bone down. Pausing at the puckered scar over my heart where Kincaid's bullet had struck true.

Her hands pulled my shirt up from where it was tucked into my trousers, and she unbuttoned the last two buttons. Then she looked back up at my face.

My voice came out hoarsely, "You sure about this?"

"Let me guess, this is the part where you tell me there's no turning back from here." She emphasized it with a sexy smile.

"Something like that." Hell's Bells, I was aching for her.

She answered by grabbing the bottom of her own t-shirt and pulling it up over her head, flinging it across the room and exposing a cute lacy pink bra and a lot of lovely skin.

Game on.

I shrugged out of my shirt and then with both hands I solidly grabbed her firm ass and pulled her up against the growing bulge in my pants. With a small whimper of desire, her mouth found my neck and she laid teeth into my flesh.

I growled and moved my hands up her smooth back and found the clasp of her bra. I made a mental note to come up with a spell in the future that will unclasp such medieval torture devices. I did finally managed to get the contraption open despite shaking hands and then I slowly pulled it from her shoulders, leaning back a bit to admire her as I did.

The first thing I noticed was that she was blushing. It was downright adorable on her. Then I let my eyes drift down her body. Creamy white skin exposed as I let her bra drop down her arms. She was doing her best to not instinctively cover herself. She set her jaw and leaned away from me a bit so I could see her.

I reached for her with both hands. Sliding them down her body and cupping her perky breasts in my palms. Feeling the weight of them and then sliding my thumbs over her pink nipples. They responded immediately to my touch and my pants twitched.

"I hope they're ok. I mean, I'm not exactly built like… " Her soft, worried words drifted off.

I shook my head. "Don't. You're built like you, and that's all I ever want you to be, all I ever need you to be." I said.

The woman had the lean muscled body of a gymnast and she was worried about what my skinny ass thought about her boobs? She had a 6 pack stomach and mine was just a mass of scars and fish belly white skin.

She shut her eyes and wiggled in my lap a bit as my hands continued to move over her chest. Murphy wiggles good.

I leaned in and kissed her jaw line, drawing my tongue up to her ear and sucking gently on her earlobe. I pulled her tight to me, needing to feel her skin against mine.

She was warm and soft and her calloused hands turned to silk as they ran over my skin and held onto my shoulders, pulling me even closer to her.

I suddenly became acutely aware that we were sitting in her living room floor and that Butters surely didn't lock the door when he left. I battled my need for a moment and my heart won out over my glands that this was not what Karrin deserved. I started to get up off the floor.

Murphy must have thought I had a sudden change of heart, though what she could feel with her hand on the front of my pants should have indicated otherwise. She tried to stop me from leaving the floor, and I knew she could stop me if she wanted to.

"Let's take this into another room." I explained.

"Sure, the laundry room is through the kitchen." She said with a grin.

"Not what I meant."

I tried to get up with her still in my arms. You see it in movies all the time, right? Well, you also see people fly in movies, and take it from me, neither are as easy as they look.

"Ah, hell." I said after a few awkward attempts as I gave up. I sidled out from under her and stood up, then leaned down and picked her up, cradling her in my arms. She began to protest. Something about me being a chivalrous pig, yadda, yadda.

"Karrin, shut the hell up." I kissed her as I carried her into her bedroom and set her down on her bed with my mouth still on hers.

We both shuffled to get our shoes off without breaking the kiss and I started to move to sit on the bed with her. She sat up at the edge of the bed and stopped me with firm hands. She pulled me over in front of her and looked up into my face as she began to work the belt to my pants.

My knees went weak watching her as she slid one hand over the throbbing lump in my pants and was able to undo the buckle with the other. She undid the button and unzipped them. As gravity took over and my pants slid to the floor, I suddenly knew exactly how Murphy had felt when I had taken off her bra and she wanted to cover up.

I had quite the boxer tent going on until Murphy had to stifle a laugh. Laughter, it seems, is the ultimate boner killer. I looked down at myself and noticed I was wearing my Star Wars boxers with Darth Vader on the front. Murphy leaned around me to look at my ass which proudly proclaimed in large letters "THE DARK SIDE". She melted into a giggle fit.

"Hell's Bells, Murph! It's not like I was expecting to lose my pants when I came over here!"

She laughed hard, a real belly laugh. I got the impression that she hadn't laughed like that in a very long time and I couldn't help but laugh with her. Then I leaned over, grabbed the legs of her sweatpants, and yanked them down to her knees. With a yelp she grabbed at them and I wrestled them off the rest of the way and held them up victoriously in a Statue of Liberty fashion before tossing them across the room.

The laughter subsided a bit as I sat on the edge of the bed and admired her prone body. She had cute lacy pink panties on, that I now realized matched the bra I had removed earlier. I ran my good hand along her thigh and tugged on one side of them. She lifted her hips off the bed and helped wiggle out of them.

There she was, completely naked, adorable and waiting for me. She sat up and pulled my face to her for a kiss. This was a clever ruse to get me to lean forward onto my knee so she could loop her thumbs into my boxers and yank them off my ass. I had to smile through the kiss as I kicked them free of my legs and slid my body up next to hers.

I propped my head up on my disfigured hand and looked down into her eyes. Mischief played in them as she reached over and wrapped her hand around me. I felt my face flush as I closed my eyes. I wanted this, I wanted her. I wanted this so much that couldn't help but think of the many ways it could end badly.

I let my good hand play over her body, she opened her legs and I slid my hand between them. Warmth and wetness greeted me and I throbbed harder in her hand.

Her hips moved up to meet my hand and I slid a finger between her folds. She rotated her hips against my palm and used her free hand to pull me onto her by my neck. I ground beneath her hand and against her thigh as my mouth hungrily sought out hers. I let my fingers tease her and delighted in her short gasps when I found the right spots.

I wanted to just touch her, taste her, please her. Everything she had risked for me, everything she'd given up for me. I owed her more than I could give back. I owed her… the truth.

I pulled up and away from her. Putting my weight on my hands on either side of her shoulders.

"Wait." I said in a whisper.

"Wait? Haven't we waited long enough?" Her voice a bit strained.

"I…I can't do this."

"WHAT?"

"I have to tell you something. Something that's not easy for me to say."

There was a long silence and she placed the palms of her hands on my chest and it sent a pleasant shiver through me.

I looked at the blue eyes staring up at me. She was trying hard to be patient. I'm sure I was a perpetual lesson in patience. Here we were, on the verge of serious step forward in our relationship. I was literally poised on the edge of glory, the tip of my shaft damp from her juices and I had put on the breaks.

Her face began to get worried. Damnit, Harry! Just say it!

"Murph… Karrin, I mean." I took a deep breath. "I… I love you." I finally stammered out.

She blinked. Her face relaxed and she snorted a little. "Are you kidding me? That was it?"

I frowned. "Hey, it's important to me!"

"Harry, how can someone so smart be so dumb?" She leaned up to kiss me softly on the mouth. "We've loved each other for years. Ask anyone who knows us."

She had a point. Hell, my brother had been trying to convince us both to do something about it since he had first met her. Even my own subconscious, jerk that he is, was always harassing me about Murphy.

I let a sly grin take over my face. "You think I'm seeexy, you want to daaaate me… " I went on in a sing song voice.

She smiled at my silliness, but then put a hand on each side of my face. She looked me in the eyes for almost too long and then shut her eyes and concentrated a bit, then said, very carefully, "Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, I love you too."

She had said my true Name. Every inflection was perfect. I felt the power of it wash over me. I sucked in a breath of air as goose bumps covered my body. Tears welled up in my eyes and I kissed her with every bit of desire and need I had bottled up for her over the years. I tipped my hips forward and slowly parted her.

She moaned into our kiss as I filled her. When our bodies met, she gave me no time to let my mind catch up with my body and she began to grind up against me. I felt like someone had cast a fire spell in my lower stomach.

I broke the kiss and leaned my forehead against hers. "Slow down, Murph, or this will be over in seconds." I begged.

Her strong legs wrapped up over my back and one of her hands dug into the flesh on my shoulders. "You got somewhere else to be, Dresden?" She challenged.

"No, it's just that I want this to last."

"I got all night." There was mischief in her tone. "We can work on the slow seduction for round three or four." Then more seriously, she said, "Right now, Harry, I need you too much to last very long myself. I need you to take me."

I mentally grinned at the thought of her needing me, and round three and four sounded like a good idea as well. Murphy bit down on my shoulder and grabbed my ass with her free hand. I thrust hard down into her, pressing ever deeper and picking up the rhythm, stroking the flames.

Her mouth encouraged me with moans and kisses and her body slid into rhythm with mine. The soft wet sound of our bodies slapping together on each down thrust was just more kindling. The delicious sensation of her inner muscles tightening on me and her hips pivoting in circles as I continued working our bodies together was bringing us ever closer to an inferno. It was all I could do to contain it.

Her moans got sharper and her breath more ragged as she said, "Harry, I'm so close." The words were like gasoline to the flames.

I slipped my right hand up under her ass, lifting her a bit to just the right angle. I felt nails dig into both my shoulders a moment before she cried out. The best part was, she cried out my name.

I felt her convulse against me, over and over, and I let the flames finally wash over me. I growled through my teeth and started to pull out. Murphy's eyes flew open and she grabbed at me with arms and legs. Pulling me back onto her and into her.

"Gah!" I said, eloquent as ever, and came deep inside of her.

She made an almost shrill sound of pleasure and her spasms continued to throb against me as I rode against her orgasm.

Her body finally relaxed and I tried not to collapse on her, listing over to the side a bit. She kept a death grip on my hips with her legs and we lay there together for a while, just listening to each other breathe.

She was the first to break the silence. "We really should have done that years ago."

"We really should do it again, soon." I observed.

She grinned and made a content sound and finally released my hips. I pulled away from her slowly and grabbed a blanket to pull over us as I wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her back to me. I liked being the big spoon. Not sure we could manage her being the big spoon anyway, so I called dibs.

"I'm glad you're back." She said softly.

"Me too, it's good to finally be home."

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><p><span>Disclaimer:<span> Harry Dresden and all established characters, settings, etc. are the property of Jim Butcher and ROC publishers. The original characters and plots are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.


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